Erstwhile mechanical engineer and Forbes Executive Editor, with MBA from NYU. In 15 years at Forbes I covered large corporations, money managers and self-made wealth builders---and the myriad trials they all face. Joined the tech-startup ranks in 2014 as co-founder and CFO of Eyes/Only, a luxury-experience portal for high-net-worth individuals. If the mood strikes (and especially if you have a tasty-tequila rec), please send your thoughts to brett@eyeson.ly.

Ten Things They Don't Tell You In Business School

Listen up, budding Masters Of The Universe, and all those who dream of walking their path to wealth, power and spacious summer homes.

At many business schools, boot-camp week–where the unwashed get a taste of debits, credits and such–starts in less than a month. After that, and just beneath the throb of your hangover (a B-school accessory), you will detect another inexorable rhythm–a faint ticking to be precise. This is the tell-tale heart to your two-year, $100,000 investment. The relentless reminder that you better get to learnin’ (or at least networking), lest you end up working for, and maybe getting laid off by, one of your classmates one day.

Now for the good–or totally vexing–news, depending how you take it: After all the spreadsheets and cost-of-capital calculations, after all the case studies and Power Point presentations, after all the tuition money is gone and it’s just you and your pedigree, contacts and gumption, guess what?

As anyone who employs people and writes checks will confirm, turning $1 into a $1.10 is a real bitch. Turning that $1.10 into $1.25, even tougher. I had to laugh the other day when a former colleague, now a partner at a boutique digital-marketing firm, sent me the following text out of the blue: “Generating positive cash flow is one of the hardest f—ing things in the world.” And then some, Matt.

For all the wonderful instruction at places like Harvard, Wharton and my alma mater, the Stern School of Business at NYU, b-schoolers should remember that making money involves so much more than columns in a spreadsheet and the ever-shifting assumptions behind them.

With that in mind, here’s a supplemental, 10-step curriculum:

1. If It Ain’t Broke, Still Fix It

One of the hardest decisions business owners have to make is turning their backs on cash when it’s flowing. But that’s exactly what you must have the courage to do sometimes to protect your franchise. Think about all those aggressive mortgage underwriters who scooped up fees by the shovelful during the housing bubble, when they should have been tightening their lending criteria. Or USA Inc., which ran deficits for years–because, well, our creditors didn’t seem to mind–and now faces a staggering $60 trillion fiscal hole (including the present value of all future obligations to its entitlement programs).

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It’s not nonsense, it’s a great article. I went to business school for a semester (pretty well-known school) and they didn’t cover any of these things. I left because I’m an entrepreneur at heart and felt they were just training us to work in large corporations.

I am a university drop out entrepreneur with, obviously, no MBA, and lately I´ve been thinking this: as to finding solutions, as a leader is better to find the right questions than to find the right answers. Do they teach you at business school the art of formulating to oneself and everybody else good questions? Any good texts about this topic? Thanks!!!

Graduate Business School taught me that a lot of people were more gifted academics.

My aptitude and interest in widgets, well it was nil.

So, following these studies, I ventured into Real Estate Development.

Since I possessed no money or savings, and with my wonderful wife and three children to support, I needed to use my wit and put it to work fast. And it’s a long story from that day.

But what I’ve learned along the way is this:

1. Do what you love, and if you’re like Paul McCartney and John Lennon (Beatles), or like Steve Jobs, you’ll do well. The only problem with this approach is few succeed in what they love doing.

2. The second way to turn a profit is to study Newton’s Law, “where there’s an Action, there will be a Reaction.”

This became the foundation for my thinking.

As it related to Real Estate Development, I called it a “Value Generator.”

The principle of a Value Generator in Real Estate Development evokes simplicity. If a major, new hospital were being built, I’d ask, “Has the Hospital included in their plans office space for doctors, labs and the private medical field.” If the answer was “no”, then I would know exactly what should be developed on the land parcel next door.

And this concept, this Value Generator approach is a good way to turn a profit in any industry since it’s strictly based on “discovering a complimentary need and demand in the market place as a direct reaction to or consequence of the Value Generator.”

And so, every business school graduate should drop the classroom “brainstorming” and instead, look for “Value Generators” and if the complimentary business opportunity is undiscovered, well, there’s the starting point for your run at life, business and turning a profit.

The format of your articles is too painfully layed out to complete. Four pages to click through, bad font and advertising links in the worst places. Then the login and sign up process to comment is horrendous. I’m going to have to slap myself for putting myself through this.

it’s eyeballs and click throughs, that’s web publishing for dollars, not aesthetics or consumer convenience. They consider the convenience being able to access – for “free” – their content. – I myself find the hidden comments to be a drawback